This is a beetle in the genus Agathidium.

This is my undergraduate advisor, Dr. Quentin D. Wheeler.

I study fungus beetles, family Leiodidae. 99.9% of the people I talk to have never heard of these things. Most entomologists have never heard of these things. They're a charming but extremely obscure family.

Thus, I would normally be delighted to see my favorite beetle group, the focal taxon of my PhD thesis, making headlines 'round the internet.
But frankly? I was a bit disturbed by the latest news.*

Now, my first thoughts on the matter were something along the lines of: WHAT THE HELL
or perhaps: Why would two reasonably honest, agreeable, non-bigoted, evolutionary biologists show this kind of obsequity towards an administration rife with big-business cronyism, environmental neglect, and pandering to religious fundamentalism?
and finally: Well, Hitler got a beetle named after him, after all...

Now that I think about it, though, that sounds like just the kind of knee-jerk liberal fussing you would expect to hear from Berkeley. After all, we had some protests here forty years ago, so you know this place must be just lousy with patchouli-scented, Volvo-driving, tree-hugging whale-savers. I for one have had just about enough of this kind of close-minded hippiedom, so I decided to consider Wheeler & Miller's revision more closely. And you know what?

I think they might be on to to something.

We systematists reconstruct phylogenies or "family trees" for groups of plants and animals, based on how many characteristics the species in question share with each other. I have assembled a preliminary data matrix, below, indicating some of the possible synapomorphies (shared characters) that suggest a close evolutionary relationship between the genus Agathidium and the Bush White House.

I hope the reader will agree that Wheeler & Miller's choice of nomenclature is not merely vividly partisan, but phylogenetically accurate as well.


REPUBLICAN SYNAPOMORPHIES

Data suggesting common ancestry

	Agathidium sp.
		Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld
Size of brain	0.1 cubic mm	0.1 cubic mm
Size of male intromittent organ	< 0.5mm	< 0.5mm
Primary habitat	Rotting interior of fungusy logs, decaying plant matter	Rotting inner workings of American political machine, decaying remains of first amendment
Feeding ecology	Feeds on slimy, amorphous plasmodium of myxomycetes	Feeds on slimy, amorphous matrix of paranoia, jingoism, general bigotry
Defense mechanism	Curling into oblivious ball, concealing self in crevices	Ignoring warnings of climate change, fuel shortages; may conceal self in vast Texas ranch
Alma mater	Ivy League (observed on campus at Cornell University)	Ivy League (observed on campus at Yale, Princeton)
Capacity to make informed decisions concerning international policy	dubious	highly dubious

What, were you expecting some kind of thoroughly-researched objection?

*Works cited:
Wheeler, Q.D. and K.B. Miller, 2005. Revision of the slime-mold
beetles of the genus Agathidium Panzer of North and Central America.
(Coleoptera: Leiodidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural
History.